OCR Text

Athens News Courier (Newspaper) - June 28, 2005, Athens, Alabama
ARound 1? Dump cleanup
Tide’s Winston hoping to goClearing of a waste dump left by
in first round in NBA jjj Recycling Solutions is progressing 5^News-CmrierServing Athens and Limestone County: A Community of Tradition and FutureTuesday, June 28, 2005 encwscmirier.com
g» ct iw'0'th/inÿ
Cheny Yeager of Athens
Subscriber of the day
Hey, Sound Off:
Just what is wrong with these bleeding hearts like Amnesty International, Red Cross and others?
These terrorists have tortured, killed and beheaded our troops and others and they do not play by any rules. Please tell me why someone that has not signed the Geneva Convention should be afforded any kinds of special treatment?
I believe the saying “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth“ should be followed whenever someone is cruel and inhuman as the (cowards) terrorists are.
I wonder if these people that want to put our enemies up in a nice hotel with all of the trimmings would still feel this way if it was one of their heads that were going to be cut off. Let’s treat terrorists the same as they treat us and with no holds barred then we might get the job done.
More Sound Off Valley, 5A
Classified 3-5B
Comics..........6B
Ledger ..........8A
Movie Listing 3A
Rogersville 8A
Obituaries 2A
Richard Lane Holt Mark Evan Mitchell Sports .........1-2B
Daily Bible Moment
liet your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16
Uimeôtone (Chabf
322 Hw>. 31 N* Athens 256-232-1051 Obit line 256-771-0934
7 69847 00001
Veterans operate posts on bingo funds
City exercises eminent domain to take property for police complex
By Karen Middleton
[email protected] net
Athens City Council on Monday night condemned four tracts of land on 4.43 acres on East Hobbs Street to seize it by right of eminent domain to build a new police complex.
Eminent domain, the seizing of private property for public purposes, is often a contentious process, but in this case both the city and the landowners are in agreement.
The council agreed on a purchase price of $200,000 with the heirs of the Beasley estate; however, a subdivision restrictive covenant in place since the subdivision on bordering Shaw Street was developed in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Condemning the property allows the city to legally void the covenant.
Further expenses other than $10,000 already spent for environmental testing will be the relocation of a sewer main, which is expected to cost $ 10,000, and $30,000 in fill dirt. The city has paid an architect $115,600 to design the new complex and $68,000 to a construction manager.
Council members vacillated between a site on U.S. 72 East and the downtown property.
The multi-million dollar police complex will be funded from $8 million the council borrowed in 2002.
Monday night’s council measure passed 3-to-l with one abstention. Jimmy Gill, who favors the U.S. 72 site, voted against the action. Henry White, who is related by marriage to a real estate agent involved in the transaction, abstained.
31 basketballs are destroyed at Elkmont, 15-year-old arrested
By Sonny Turner
sonnytpyathensnews-courier.com
Limestone County investigators have arrested one 15-year-old and expect to question another today for destroying 31 basketballs in the Elkmont High School gymnasium.
Chief Investigator Stanley McNatt said both juveniles are students at Elkmont High School. The 15-year-old is charged with second-degree criminal mischief.
McNatt said someone entered the gym between June 22-24 and punctured the basketballs apparently with a knife. The suspects also cut a wall mat beneath one of the basketball goals in the gym, investigators said.
“They caused approximately $1,415 in damages,” McNatt said.
He said Elkmont High School Resource Officer Matt Wassum is assisting in the investigation.
Get the news with your morning
Subscribe to The Seu's-Courier
232-2720
Shark attacks in Gulf
Boy critical after second attack in three days
By Bill Kaczor
Associated Press Writer
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP)
A teenage boy was bitten and critically injured Monday in the second shark attack in three days along the Florida Panhandle.
The boy, whose age and name were not released, was taken to Bay Medical Center in Panama City. T he nature of his injuries was not immediately released, but he underwent surgery and his condition stabilized, hospital spokeswoman C hrista Hild said.
“That means he’s going to be OK,” she said.
The boy was attacked off Cape San Bias, a popular vacation destination about 80 miles southeast of the Destin area, where 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, La., was killed by a shark on Saturday.
Daigle had been swimming on a boogie board with a friend about 100 yards from shore when a shark tore away the flesh on one leg from her hip to her knee.
Erich Ritter of the Shark Attack Institute said the girl was probably attacked by a 6-foot bull shark, based on measure-
See Attack, Page 2A
By Karen Middleton
ancne\[email protected] net Local veterans’ groups conducting bingo games as fund-raisers by permission of state legislation for “charitable, educational or other lawful pur-
poses,” are taking oECOND IN
nearly all post
operational A SERIES
expenses out of _
their bingo funds,
according to public records on file at the Limestone County Commission office.
Disabled American Veterans conducts bingo games on Monday nights; Vietnam Veterans of American conducts bingo on Friday nights, and Veterans of Foreign Wars conducts bingo on Saturday nights.
Legislation that specifies qualified organizations may take “reasonable expenses of operating and conducting its bingo games" out of proceeds essentially leaves it up to post leadership to determine what constitutes “reasonable expenses.” Mortgage payments and national convention expenses are among items paid out of the funds.
The legislation does not specify what percentage of proceeds must go to charity, does not provide for an oversight committee and does not require auditing of
sight or accountability.
Decatur City Council passed an ordinance in 2001 requiring 51 percent of gross receipts be donated to outside charities not connected with the service organization and providing for a review committee. Limestone County bingo permit holders are required to submit unaudited bingo fund records to County Clerk Administrator Pam Ball every January.
DAV bingo fund
The DAV for calendar year 2004 declared $42,434 in gross receipts, $23,308.32 in net bingo proceeds and donated $4,140, or 9 percent of gross, for charitable or educational purposes. Expenses paid out of the bingo fund: Other: $2,999.06 (Miscellaneous, member dinners and picnics, taxes and door prizes)
Chapter Home Expenses: $10,515.40 (Utilities, telephone, cable, propane, security system and locks, flowers, paper and chemicals, janitorial and cleaning supplies, insurance, lumber and lighting supplies, pest control, parking lot striping and seal-
See Bingo, Page 3A
funds. Neither the County Commission has asked state legislators to sponsor an amendment allowing them more regulatory power nor has the Athens City Council passed ordinances regulating donations, over-
Teens arrested
for
burglaries
By Sonny Turner
[email protected]\\'s-courier. com
Limestone County authorities arrested two 17-year-old juveniles and an 18-year-old Monday after they returned to a store they burglarized earlier in the night.
“They confessed to burglarizing T&T Grocery and leaving there to break into Elk River Grocery before coming back to T&T and hitting it again,” said Limestone County Chief Investigator Stanley McNatt. “Our officers found them sitting in a van behind the store.”
Arrested and charged with two counts of third-degree burglary each are Glen Robert Vair, 18, of 21898 Bean Road, Athens, and the two 17-year-old boys, one from Athens and the other from Ohio who is in Athens visiting friends.
McNatt said a call came in to the Limestone County Sheriffs Department at 2:25 a.m. Monday from a clerk at Elk River Grocery on the 5000 block of U.S. 72 West reporting the store burglary. He said the thieves threw a rock through a window to enter the business.
“When the call went out deputies Dusty Meadows and Chad Smith went by T&T Tackle on the 14000 block of U.S. 72 West due to the fact that Friday night that business had been broken into. While there, they found T&T had been entered again,” McNatt said.
“Someone had removed the plywood the owners had placed on the store window from the Friday night burglary and entered the store again,” McNatt said. “The deputies got to checking and found that some of the stolen goods were dropped on the ground on the east side of the building. That is when they observed a van parked beside the business. They found three people inside it along with some of the stolen merchandise from T&T.”
McNatt said all three suspects were taken into custody and upon being questioned by Investigator Mike Boyles admitted to burglarizing T&T and Elk River Grocery before returning to T&T and entering the store a second time Sunday night.
“They stole cigarettes and fishing rods from both businesses and returned to T&T to get some fishing rods,” McNatt said.
See Burglaries, Page 2A
News-Courier/Kim Rynders Limestone County Investigator Mike Boyles looks over some of the cigarettes and fishing equipment authorities recovered from a van Monday morning. Three county teenagers were arrested.
;